


Words Not Needed

by panda_shi



Category: Naruto
Genre: Anbu Yamato | Tenzou, Caretaking, Cute, Drunken Confessions, Drunken Shenanigans, Drunkenness, Emotional Baggage, Kakashi is a good bro, Kind of Sweet, M/M, Psychological Trauma, Trauma, good senpai
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:02:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28279581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/panda_shi/pseuds/panda_shi
Summary: “What do I love about you?” Tenzou slurs and then suddenly breaks out to a wide, boyishly charming grin that leaves him looking years younger. “I could go on all night, senpai!”
Relationships: Hatake Kakashi/Yamato | Tenzou
Comments: 3
Kudos: 66





	Words Not Needed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TenzosNewLeaf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TenzosNewLeaf/gifts).



> Self beta'd. 
> 
> Written for the Discord: Kakashi Lounge Exchange gift event for TNL, [based on their artwork right here.](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/775342706167644181/779761626055442432/image0-7.png)

When the knock comes a little past midnight, Kakashi is surprised to find Gai standing in his door with Tenzou hanging off his shoulder, his entire face flushed. Asuma doesn’t really provide much of an explanation except he deposits Tenzou in Kakashi’s arms, who simply hangs over Kakashi’s front like those wrap long limbed wrap-around stuff toys that seems to be all the rage amongst the kids these days. Kakashi is left standing there, with Asuma blowing cigarette smoke out of his mouth, giving Kakashi a mock salute with two fingers before he promptly disappears in a puff of chakra.

Leaving Tenzou warbling in Kakashi’s ear, reeking of sake, his chin resting heavily on Kakashi’s shoulder.

“Senpai is an ass. A big, giant ass,” Tenzou says, and then proceeds to burp something that makes Kakashi’s eyes _water_.

Good grief, just what did Tenzou eat before he decided to drink?

Kakashi _sighs_ , half picking up, half dragging Tenzou past the genkan, locking the door and making sure the wards are intact. He deposits Tenzou’s body on a chair, where Tenzou thankfully stays up and doesn’t slide off it. Or tilt to the side and end up in a heap of limbs on the carpet-less floor. Kakashi stares down at Tenzou, rubbing the back of his head, taking stock of Tenzou sniffing and staring back at him with a bit of a glazed eye.

“Oh, senpai, you’re here,” Tenzou states, and then devolves to a dopey looking drunken smile. He ends up looking a little… _dorky_. “I don’t have my wallet.”

“I didn’t ask for it,” Kakashi chuckles, shaking his head in bemusement. He can tell from a mile away

“You always ask for its contents,” Tenzou points out, tilting his head to one side, confused.

“Because you make it so easy,” Kakashi retorts, reaching forward to tug Tenzou’s outer uniform shirt off, something that is a little soaked on the front and smelling strongly of what must have been a noxiously sweet sake-cocktail. “Did you cause trouble?”

“I was singing karaoke and then they gave me drinks.” Tenzou lifts his arms up as Kakashi tugs his shirt over his head, tossing it aside on the floor. “They’re a lot nicer than you. They buy me drinks! With the umbrellas! And cherries! And the imported olives!”

“Is that so?” Kakashi chuckles, shaking his head as he drops to his knees and tugs off Tenzou’s equally damp pants. Kakashi doesn’t think he’s ever seen Tenzou in quite a drunken state like this before. Tenzou usually has better control of his faculties than, well, _this_. Tenzou sticks his legs out, lifting his ass off the chair and arching into Kakashi’s arms, ever so warm and quite solid and graceful, despite his loose mouth. The pants come off and Kakashi tosses it with the shirt on the floor, leaving Tenzou in only his boxers and singlet. “Am I really a bad senpai?”

“You are an annoying senpai,” Tenzou grumps, the words sounding like a correction, his head lolling to one side on his shoulder, eyes blinking owlishly at the ceiling.

“Am I now,” Kakashi glibly responds, gathering Tenzou’s dirty uniform and tossing into the washer with a detergent pod. He wrinkles his nose at the smell that still clings to his hands, his sensitive sense of smell not really appreciating that noxious scent. He sets the timer, lets the washing machine runs it course, rinses his hands and then pours Tenzou a tall glass of water. Which he holds out in front of Tenzou’s face, giving him no reason to not drink it. “All of it. Go on.”

Tenzou obeys. 

Of course he obeys. 

The water disappears in one long thirsty chug, leaving Tenzou sighing as he slouches on his chair, hips stinging out a little obscenely. Had it not been for the fact that Tenzou is absolutely wasted, Kakashi would have taken it as quiet invitation, would have straddled those strong thighs and roll his hips with a lurid smirk over the generous bulge of what Kakashi knows is an incredibly thick, long cock. Kakashi gives him another glass and that too disappears. Good, Kakashi thinks, as he fills the third and leaves it on the table. He pulls out a chair and sits himself across Tenzou, staring at him with an amused exasperation.

“You’re a hundred times tougher to endure than a regular person. I can’t handle you half the time. You’re one slick character all right, playing people like a fiddle! I turn around for one second and then the next thing I know, I’m saddled with all the dirty work! But that’s probably all my fault! I let you walk all over me, all the time,” Tenzou loudly says, swaying and slurring his words. “I feel like I’ve said this before. Did I ever say this before? Doesn’t matter. I’m saying it now! Oh, and that time when we were training Naruto! Why didn’t you tell me I needed ear plugs to ward off Naruto’s very loud snoring? That wasn’t nice of you, senpai!”

Tenzou tilts heavily to one side, his arms suddenly sticking out and comically swaying to maintain his balance. Kakashi’s arms shoots forward, grabbing Tenzou by the shoulder and steadying him on his seat. He should probably move him to the couch. But this is a lot more fun to watch. Kakashi wonders just how far Tenzou’s training is going to hold out before he ends up on the floor in a crash of limbs and if he’d even remember that he had fallen the next morning. 

“Walking all over you? Me? Maa, Tenzou~” Kakashi singsongs, holding Tenzou in place before releasing him when he’s sure that Tenzou isn’t going to conk over and get himself on the floor. “Am I really that bad? Is there truly nothing about me that’s good? Nothing loveable~?”

Kakashi asks with humor but he knows the answer.

He’s known it since he put a fistful of lightning through the chest of the only person whose every truly expressed any love for him.

He’s known his worth as a man when he couldn’t lift off the weight of the rocks that crushed his best friend, the person who ensured that he got to see the future with both his eyes.

He’s known his value as a son when he couldn’t fix the guts spilling out of his father’s stomach, couldn’t be there in time to prevent it from happening, couldn’t be enough for his father to look past the shame, past the mistake of preserving life that in the end, after losing his teammates (too late, always too fucking late), Kakashi realizes, is what’s important.

(Because abandoning your comrades makes you worse than trash. You hated your father for a while, a part of you never forgiving for breaking the rules. Only to realize that you were the trash, not him. Never him. Sakumo knew what was right. And you didn’t. You were a fool. You kept being the fool. Still are.)

He’s known it when he follows orders to leave the son of his sensei alone, to not forge bonds with the jinchuuriki, because he _is_ the jinchuuriki, to not show any partial affection towards him when the way the village treated the child had been wrong. Unfair. Cruel. When Naruto is a hero and should have never been a political pawn to begin with. When politics can ruin a child’s childhood, when Kakashi knows that love is always stronger than the rules. He sees it now in Naruto, how grounded he is because _one_ teacher had shown him affection, had acknowledged him and what a difference that had made in a child that had been shunned by society for nearly half his life.

But to be good, to be loveable, well, Kakashi knows those two words aren’t things he deserves to be associated with. He is not a good man. He isn’t deserving of love. Not when he is more weapon than a man, when he carries the screams of the people he’s abandoned and killed throughout the years in his chest, when he’s drenched in blood that he can never wash away, no matter how scalding the water may be, or how concentrated the soap may be. There is nothing redeemable about him to deserve to be called good. Let alone loved.

Those things are for children. And Kakashi has never been a child. Ever.

So he sits there, head tilted, and patiently waits for the truth to come tumbling out Tenzou’s mouth, once and for all.

“What do I love about you?” Tenzou slurs and then suddenly breaks out to a wide, boyishly charming grin that leaves him looking years younger. “I could go on _all_ night, senpai!”

That catches Kakashi off guard, makes him jerk back just the tiniest bit as he blinks in surprise. It makes him stare openly, his entire body freezing from where he had crossed his legs and propped his chin on his palm, eyes wide as he tries to find a lie in that statement. Alcohol, after all, only makes a person honest, drags the truth out of them.

There is not a single lie visible anywhere on Tenzou’s face.

It makes Kakashi swallow, his eyebrows knit, as he sucks in a slow breath through his nose and then casually, a little lazily asks, “Oh?”

“Hmmm,” Tenzou looks up at the ceiling, deep in thought. “Hmmm, I guess you can say…”

Tenzou goes still, crossing his arms, narrowing his eyebrows in thought, like the countless times Kakashi has seen him do when Tenzou is in the middle of strategizing something in his mind’s eye, when he’s organizing his thoughts before wording what he wants to put across in a clear and concise manner. Tenzou’s fingers drum once over the curve of his elbow, a sign that he’s formed what Kakashi assumes is some sort of mental list. Tenzou’s chin tips downwards, seemingly deeper in thought, eyebrows narrowing further, as he nods once, as if satisfied with whatever it is that’s turning in his head.

Kakashi doesn’t realize how apprehensive he is until he gently prompts Tenzou for an answer that takes too long to come tumbling out of Tenzou’s mouth. “You were saying…?”

Except the answer Kakashi gets is a loud, bubbly, snorting snore instead.

Kakashi _blinks_.

Sure enough, Tenzou is passed out on the chair, chin against his chest and dead to the world, mouth falling wide open.

A breathless laugh tears its way out of Kakashi’s mouth, unbidden and surprised and perhaps just a little touched, as he shakes his head and stands, carefully adjusting Tenzou who moans a little throatily, snapping awake the moment Kakashi loops his arms around his shoulders, instincts firing at ready. Kakashi sweeps a hand over Tenzou’s forehead, whispers for him to sleep and Tenzou does so in an open show of trust that he’s always shown Kakashi, something they have between them for years, a mutual understanding, always having each other’s backs, no matter what.

Kakashi carries Tenzou to the bed, laying his head on a pillow and tugging the sheets over him. He keeps the glass of water by the nightstand, along with a strip of aspirin for the morning, because no doubt Tenzou is going to wake up with a hangover from hell.

Kakashi’s fingers gently brushes the slightly longer fall of Tenzou’s bangs off his face, huffs in amusement before he leaves the room, switching the lights off. Sleeping like this, lips parted and looking completely unguarded, Tenzou looks far too young, too vulnerable, a little softer than the hardlines that defines him to the rest of the world, the seasoned ANBU that never cracks, never breaks, because perhaps, more than anyone, Tenzou is the most broken of them all (after all, there’s nothing left in him to break when it’s been reduced to ashes and conditioned by root), a bit of drool collecting around the corner of his lips.

Tomorrow, he’ll take Tenzou out to breakfast; maybe it’ll pacify his undeniably cute, if not outright adorable, little shit of a kouhai.

(He may not know what it is that Tenzou loves about him, but the fact that Tenzou carries love for him is more than enough for Kakashi. They never needed words between them, anyway. ) 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope that was okay! This is my first attempt to write a cutesy, kind of romantic KakaYama ~~and I'm hoping it came out organic because I am not a kkym shipper at all~~. What a challenge to overcome! 
> 
> Happy Holidays, everyone!


End file.
